More on the EVT's mysterious reference to "race" problems at a (night)club in Chandler
Earlier today we noted an odd story in the East Valley Tribune, which detailed a legal dispute between a new nightclub and some other local businesses, a group of restaurants at the same strip mall.
The dispute has something to do whether the place is a club, a nightclub or a concert venue.
Way down in the story there were unexplained references to remarks about the clientele’s “race.”
But the story never said what “race” was being singled out. It could have been Hispanic or Asian, Ewok or Eloi, black or … [gulp!] white!
Friends in Chandler have subsequently informed us that clientele is black—and that African Americans were the object of the alleged racial comments alluded to in the story.
I dug through the EVT’s archive on the dispute, but didn’t find an example of the paper’s having vouchsafed this information to its readers.
Besides one sidelong reference to a “civil rights” aspect—“civil rights” being a well-known euphemism for “black-related”—there was nothing to let a disinterested reader know what in the hell was going on.
Isn’t this overdelicate? On the one hand we have the crazy Arizona Republic, which insists on capitalizing the words “black” and “white.” The Republic’s treatment gives you the sense that someone there was indignant that the word “black” was getting capitalized, and insisted on capitalizing “white,” too.
It is a practice that to my knowledge is followed by no other daily paper in the country. The Republic is the journalistic equivalent of a kid wondering why moms and dads get Mother’s Days and Father’s Days, but there’s no Kid’s Day.
(The answer, of course is that every day is Kid’s Day.)
And now we have the EVT, trying in effect whisper the news.
“It’s about race.”
Huh?
“It’s about race.”
Huh?
Previously in PHXated:
Why does the Arizona Republic capitalize the words “white” and “black”?.
4:06 PM
What's the "race" of the folks who go to Phase 54 in Chandler?
Nothing more irritating than reading a news story that raises more questions than it answers.
Phase 54 is some sort of dancing and concert venue in Chandler, at I-10 and Ray Road. It’s having a legal dispute with its landlord and some of the other businesses in its little suburban strip-mall enclave, and this has evidently turned into an actual trial.
East Valley Tribune story here.
The legal issue is apparently whether the place is a concert venue or a night club; its operations have apparently overwhelmed the mall’s available parking, which has turned the businesses nearby, including an Outback Steakhouse, against it.
The property owners, according to the story, says the lease doesn’t allow a “night club,” though it’s apparently allowed to be a “concert venue” and a plain old club club.
None of these distinctions are explained, so the story’s irritating to read.
But even that’s the the big question raised. That comes in this passage:
On Tuesday, Gama found that a transcript of a taped conversation from an Outback [Steakhouse] manager complaining about the race of club patrons will not be allowed in the case. He said it would create confusion for the jury.
Jon Harris, Phase 54’s owner, said that the real reason the restaurants don’t want the club to stay open is because they’re concerned by the racial background of club patrons.
Shouldn’t the paper tell us what race we’re talking about here?
Asians?
Hispanics?
My god, perhaps even … whites?!
The story says the club plays Top 40 music, which isn’t a specific enough clue.
The Phase 54 web site is here.
One thing the owners of Phase 54 are definitely guilty of is recycling Studio 54’s logo:
6:53 AM
Chandler firefighters refuse H1N1 shots
About three-quarters of Chandler firefighters eligible to receive doses from an early batch of the H1N1 flu vaccine have refused it, according to fire department officials.
[…]
Only about 50 Chandler firefighters volunteered Wednesday and Thursday to receive a nasal mist containing a weakened form of the virus, said Donna Pierce, a Chandler Fire Department captain who traveled around to several city fire stations to administer the vaccine.
Many of those who volunteered for the vaccine said it was because they have young children to whom they didn’t want to spread a possible infection.
“The other two-thirds are like, ’Nope, we don’t want it,’” Pierce said.
Those who declined the vaccination generally said it was because the vaccine was new and untested, she said.
Emphases added. What’s going on here seems obvious: A virus as pungent as the H1N1 has already swept though Chandler firehouses—a Glenn Beck-fueled ignorance virus. I’m as supportive of our local protective-service departments as the next guy, but it does not increase one’s confidence in the mental acuity prevailing in those precincts to hear that this sort of know-nothingism is in the air.
Well, it’s not like the firefighters are living and working in close proximity that could turn a typical station into a petri dish if the virus did get loose, ending up costing the city a lot of money and leaving its residents less safe.
Oh, wait …
12:00 AM